Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Conf & Coffee 2018 at the Unbounce office in Vancouver, BC. Organized by the Code & Coffee Meetup group, this conference catered to programmers with a love for caffeine. The event saw a diverse mix of professionals and students, with a noticeable inclination towards mobile and web development.
Technical talks and workshops covered a wide range of languages, frameworks, and platforms, including React, NodeJS, JavaScript, Ruby, CSS, Elm, Elixir, Haskell, Python, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Johnny-Five, and Toccata. Additionally, discussions spanned higher-level topics such as blockchain, data infrastructure, functional programming, software development, leadership, mentorship, project management and coffee (of course). For a detailed conference breakdown, check out the conference schedule, with additional resources available here.
My experience at the conference left me feeling enriched and enlightened, particularly after immersing myself in workshops rather than talks. Here are my top five takeaways:
- Engineers and the software systems they create are inherently coupled, necessitating a holistic consideration of both
- JavaScript is weird
- Electronics and JavaScript actually do mix
- I need to learn functional programming to be a great programmer
- Leadership skills are invaluable, regardless of one’s position within an organization